Overview

From bestselling author Ralph Comptonan extraordinary saga of the hard-driving Texans who locked horns with a ruthless railroad baron in a bloody battle for an untamed land.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad…

THE WESTERN TRAIL

Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their livesto win the right to call the land their own.

"Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted."Tombstone Epitaph

About the Author

Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. His first novel in the Trail Drive series, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. A native of St. Clair County, Alabama, Compton worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist before turning to writing westerns. He died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1998.

Scott Sowers has narrated numerous audiobooks, including books by Douglas Preston, Robert Ludlum, John Hart, and Nicholas Sparks. He was named the 2008 Best Voice in Mystery & Suspense by AudioFile magazine. AudioFile also awarded Sowers an Earphones Award for his narration of John Hart's Down River, writing, "[providing] a bewitching rhythm and pace, expertly capturing and elevating this story of redemption. The combination of Hart and Sowers provides the perfect marriage of prose and voice. Together they enable the book to transcend genre fiction and become something exceptional."

Read an Excerpt

The Western Trail

St. Martin's Press

The herd grazed peacefully along Lodge Pole Creek. They were still an hour away from sundown, but Salty went ahead with supper.

"I can't wait to see the shops and the town," said Rebecca Nance. "Just imagine how much better everything will be with the railroad here. Can't we stay here a few days?"

"I'd planned to," said McCaleb. "I'll need to visit the bank and the land office, and I expect the chuck wagon's mighty bare. Right, Salty?"

"Dang right," said the garrulous old cook. "After th' feed we just had, they ain't no bacon t' go with th' beans we ain't got, an' no coffee t' drink with th' dried apple pie, even if'n we had th' apples t' make 'em."

"In the morning, then," said McCaleb, "we'll see what Cheyenne has to offer."

They gathered around the chuck wagon, enjoying their coffee. They were a good outfit, McCaleb reflected. It was a time for remembering, and he let his thoughts touch on each of them and the trails they'd ridden together. First, there was Brazos Gifford and Will Elliot. They were closer to McCaleb than brothers. They would have given their lives for McCaleb, and he'd have done no less for them.

Brazos Gifford was a redheaded, quick-tempered, Spanish-speaking cowboy from south Texas. He wore a gray, flat-crowned hat, tilted low over his green eyes. The rest of his garb consisted of denim shirt, Levi's pants, and rough-out, high-heeled boots. Will Elliot had curly black hair, gray eyes, and a quick sense of humor. Will was educated. His father had been a lawyer before the war, and Will could hold his own in a frontier courtroom. Will was from Waco, and except for a wide-brim, pinch-crease black Stetson, he wore the same range clothes as Brazos. Each man carried a tied-down .44 Colt low on his right hip, and like Benton McCaleb, each carried a sixteen-shot Henry repeating rifle in his saddle boot. Brazos was twenty-nine, just a year younger than McCaleb, while Will was a year older.

If Benton McCaleb lived to be a hundred, he'd never forget the volatile situation he, Brazos, and Will had ridden into three years ago, when they'd gone to the Trinity River brakes to gather a herd of wild longhorns. While the Comanche Indians were the scourge of East Texas and would have been trouble enough, that hadn't been the worst of it. York Nance, a shameless old reprobate run out of Missouri for mule rustling, had a shack on the Trinity. He also had a son, a daughter, and a shaky alliance with the Comanches. Not only had he been selling them rotgut whiskey, he'd devised a nefarious scheme to supply them with new Spencer rifles! Worse, he had half promised his daughter to Blue Feather, a Comanche chief. McCaleb had an immediate falling out with York Nance, and the old man's dishonest ways had eventually driven Monte and Rebecca away.

Monte, the old man's twenty-one-year-old son, was a swaggering, hot-tempered kid who fancied himself a fast gun. He challenged McCaleb, went for his gun, and was wounded. Rebecca, Nance's twenty-eight-year-old daughter, had been a mother to Monte since his birth, and went after McCaleb. Thus their first meeting resulted in a kicking, scratching, clawing fight that ended with McCaleb dunking the furious Rebecca in the river. Despite instant hostility between the temperamental girl and McCaleb, a relationship developed. Rebecca Nance had green eyes, dark hair, callused hands, and not the foggiest notion of how to be a lady. Motherless since she was five, she could ride, rope, and shoot like a cowboy. And she swore like a bull whacker. But she was as charming as she was beautiful. McCaleb's outfit yielded to her plea; she and Monte had added their small herd to McCaleb's gather. From Texas to Colorado, McCaleb had endured Rebecca's stormy moods and the outfit's bullyragging, only to have the girl become infatuated with an unscrupulous Colorado cattleman, Jonathan Wickliffe. McCaleb had found himself facing hired guns on a Denver street, had been wounded, and had ended up in jail. Only when Rebecca had discovered Wickliffe's plan to kill McCaleb had he managed to reclaim her.

While young Monte Nance became faster and more deadly with a Colt, he was also improving his skills at the poker table. It was a volatile mix, which drew McCaleb's outfit into an alliance with gunfighter Clay Allison and led to a shootout with crooked gamblers in Santa Fe. There, they met the stove-up old cook, Salty Reynolds. Salty was trapped behind a lunch counter, longing to return to the range, but unable to ride. McCaleb, tired of pack mules, had bought a chuck wagon and had hired the crippled old rider. Salty had graying hair, watery blue eyes, and a sharp tongue that hid a soft heart.

The most enigmatic of McCaleb's outfit was a Comanche-hating Lipan Apache they knew only as Ganos. "Goose," half-starved and near death, was about to be burned at the stake by Comanches. Scouting the Trinity River brakes, McCaleb, Brazos, and Will had gunned down his captors, freeing the Indian. Goose had remained, riding, roping, and scouting. Goose adapted, becoming deadly quick with a Colt and a consummate gambler, but always an Indian. His constant companion was a foot-long bowie knife, razor-keen, for the scalping of his enemies.

Following the gunfight in Denver, McCaleb had spent the night in jail, pending a hearing. While there, he'd lent a sympathetic ear to three young Texas cowboys in an adjoining cell. The oldest was Pendleton Rhodes. Pen was a studious, quick-witted half-breed from Waco. He had jet-black hair, dark eyes, and a sense of humor. His companions were blue-eyed, tow-headed brothers from San Antonio, Jed and Stoney Vandiver. Stoney was youngest, just twenty-two. Jed was twenty-four, a year younger than Pen Rhodes. The trio had come up the trail from Texas, had sold their horses in Ellsworth, and had ridden the train to Denver. They had gone to a whorehouse, had been given doctored drinks, and robbed. They retaliated by wrecking the place. Benton McCaleb had been impressed with them and had paid for their release. In the summer of 1868, when McCaleb rode out of Denver, Jed, Stoney, and Pen rode with him.

Although Cheyenne was only a year old, it had an air of permanence that most railroad towns lacked. Chief engineer Grenville Dodge had chosen it as a division point for the Union Pacific, and already there was a bank, a land office, and a weekly newspaper. There were six saloons, a barbershop and bathhouse, a billiard parlor, several rooming houses, a whorehouse, a combined livery and wagon yard, and a variety of shops and stores.

"I have business at the bank and the land office," said McCaleb. "Near as we are to town, four of you can ride along. When we get back, the rest of you can go. Pen, Jed, Stoney, and Salty, I can advance you some money to buy whatever you need. You won't get a better chance than this."

"I'm about half scairt to go to town," said Stoney, "after what we got into back in Denver."

"Stay out of the whorehouses," said McCaleb. "You're likely to come out of there with more than an aching head and empty pockets."

"We're new to the outfit," said Pen. "We'll stay with the herd, and take our turn when the rest of you get back."

"Don't let us have any money until we're ready for town," said Pen, "or this Lipan cardsharp will clean us out while you're gone."

Will, Brazos, Monte, and Rebecca rode with McCaleb into town. He advanced each of them fifty dollars.

"We've tangled with the law and the courts in New Mexico and Colorado," said McCaleb. "Don't do anything that'll put us on the outs with the law here."

They grinned at him and headed for the billiard parlor.

"You never told me why Pen, Jed, and Stoney were in jail in Denver," said Rebecca. "Did that have something to do with you telling them to stay out of whorehouses?"

"Yeah," said McCaleb, "and if they ever find out I've told you, they'll be so embarrassed, they'll never look you in the face again. Come on, we have things to do."

There was a surprising number of Indians in town, apparently seeing nothing, yet seeing everything. McCaleb headed for Bullard's Mercantile, the most imposing store in Cheyenne. It covered half a block, a roofed boardwalk running the length of it.

"If you're going to the bank and to the land office," said Rebecca, "why don't we go there first? I want to spend some time in the store without us having to hurry."

"Because there's something I aim to take care of here before we go anywhere else. Later on, we'll come back here and you can take all the time you want."

Mystified, Rebecca followed him into the vast store. It was prestigious as anything she had seen in Denver or St. Louis. McCaleb headed for the center of the store and the main counter, on which sat a locked glass display case. She caught her breath at the watches and various expensive jewelry items. There were necklaces, lockets, and bracelets. And rings!

The white-haired man who hurried to wait on them might have been Bullard himself. He wore an expensive dark suit, tie, and a professional smile. Rebecca thought the smile became a bit strained as he took in their dusty clothes and runover boots.

"I want a ring for the lady," said McCaleb.

"The rings — the diamonds — are very expensive," said the man who might have been Bullard. He no longer smiled.

"I expected them to be," said McCaleb. "Let her try that one on; the big one."

"The large one is, ah, five hundred dollars...."

"I didn't ask how much it is," said McCaleb, irked. "I asked you to let her try it on. If it fits, or can be made to fit, we'll take it."

Rebecca became so choked up, she could hardly breathe as he slipped the ring on her third finger. The finger on which she had worn Jonathan Wickliffe's ring, not quite a week ago.

"... a bit loose," the expensive-dressed man was saying.

"She can take it off when she's ropin' cows," said McCaleb, unsmiling. He took a handful of double eagles from the saddlebag he carried, spilling them out on the counter. Bullard — if that's who he was — had regained his professional smile. Rebecca said nothing until they were outside the store, on the boardwalk. She trotted ahead of McCaleb, and when he reached her, she threw her arms around him, half laughing, half crying.

"Benton McCaleb," she cried, "you and your cast-iron Texas pride! Thank God he didn't know you well enough to tell you the price was five thousand dollars!"

While the building housing the bank was no more than adequate, there was an enormous vault with a time lock. Musgrove, the banker, seemed truly happy to see them. Especially when McCaleb dropped the gold-laden saddlebags on his desk.

"I appreciate your business, McCaleb," said Musgrove. "God knows, we need somebody to populate this territory besides mountain men and Indians. The railroad brings folks here and then takes them farther west, on to Oregon and California."

"That's part of our reason for coming here," said McCaleb. "The railroad. Why drive cattle a thousand miles to market when there's a couple million acres of buffalo grass within spittin' distance of the track?"

"My very existence hinges on the railroad, McCaleb. The Union Pacific is my bread and butter, so I am not at liberty to discuss some of the, ah, 'irregularities' which have arisen as a result of government land grants along the Union Pacific right-of-way. I would suggest that once you have met with Malcolm Walker at the land office, you actually homestead — secure by patent — the land you have in mind."

McCaleb and Rebecca had said little, allowing Musgrove to do most of the talking. Once they left the bank, Rebecca voiced McCaleb's very thoughts.

"The government's giving the railroads millions of acres along their rights-of-way. What Musgrove is really telling us is something's crooked going on. He's telling us to shy away from railroad lands. Why?" "The railroad, or somebody involved with it, has plans for those millions of acres," said McCaleb. "I don't aim to squat on railroad lands or use them for free range. We'll find good grazing land with water and settle there. I don't see how that poses a problem for us or the railroad. We can have access to it without settling alongside the tracks."

The huge map on Malcolm Walker's wall was the result of a survey the railroad had done in Wyoming Territory in 1862. The railroad grants — every other section along the right-of-way — had been blue-penciled. Many of the alternate sections had been blocked off in red.

"The sections blocked in red have been homesteaded," said Walker. "As you can see, where the Green River flows south from the Wind River range all the way east to the North Platte, the Sweetwater valley is tied up with homesteading."

"There's the Powder River basin, north of the Sweetwater River," said McCaleb. "Why are there no homesteaded sections there?"

"Shoshoni and Arapaho lands," said Walker. "The government ceded them the Powder River valley and lands north to the Big Horn mountains after the close of the Bozeman trail."

"The Sweetwater range has been boxed in," said McCaleb. "A hundred and fifty miles from west to east, and seventy-five miles north to south, homesteaded strategically along the Sweetwater to secure all water rights, and covered to the south by the Union Pacific tracks and government grants to the railroad. If I had to guess, I'd say that some jaybird has hired himself enough 'homesteaders' to tie up water rights along the Sweetwater to the north. Still guessin', I won't be surprised to find this same hombre already has, or can get, control of the government grants along the Union Pacific right-of-way to the south."

"I can't confirm or deny what you've just said," protested Walker. "I can assure you that the homesteaded sections along the Sweetwater are in the names of individuals. Different people."

"With every one capable of proving up on his patent," said McCaleb, "and then selling out to someone else."

"Mr. McCaleb," said Walker coldly, "it's not my place to discuss with you the possibility — or even the probability — of wrongdoing under the Homestead Act. I'm here to tell you what's available for homesteading and to assist you in filing if you choose to do so."

"We want to file on ten quarter-sections, then," said McCaleb. "On Box Elder Creek, a hundred miles due north of Cheyenne and fifty miles north of the Union Pacific tracks."

"I see," said Walker with a half smile. "Each of your riders will claim a quarter section, and you — the outfit — will control it all. Legal, of course, but I had the impression you didn't approve of such tactics."

"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," said McCaleb.

"Maybe we should just move on," said Rebecca when they'd left the land office. "We could go to Montana. Somebody with the railroad almost has to be involved in all this, and we can't fight them."

"I don't aim to," said McCaleb. "We're not makin' a bid for their land, and we've got as much right to homestead as they have. What's botherin' you is that people as greedy as that, owning the Sweetwater valley, still won't be satisfied."

"I know they won't," she said. "If they were that easy to satisfy, they wouldn't have taken so much already."

"It purely ain't my nature to run from people like that," said McCaleb. "Let one buffalo you, and you'll end up always on the run. I won't run."

"How well I know that," sighed Rebecca. "Texans are never truly happy until they're down to their last two or three shells, bleeding from their wounds, and surrounded by hostile Indians or outlaws. Can we go to the store?"

"You can," said McCaleb. "I aim to find out who this jaybird is that's makin' such big tracks along the Sweetwater. Like you said," he grinned, "if he gets troublesome, I'll have to know who I'm gunnin' for."

Returning to Bullard's Mercantile, Rebecca found Brazos and Monte testing the lever action on some new Winchester rifles.

"Seventeen-shot," said Monte. "They're replacing the Henry. Seems like we've made enough money that we could afford some of these. But they're almost fifty dollars apiece."

Rebecca giggled. "We can't afford them. McCaleb spent all our money."

Monte whooped at the sight of the ring and lifted her off the floor. Even the usually bashful Brazos gave her a squeeze.

First Chapter

The Western Trail

St. Martin's Press

The herd grazed peacefully along Lodge Pole Creek. They were still an hour away from sundown, but Salty went ahead with supper.

"I can't wait to see the shops and the town," said Rebecca Nance. "Just imagine how much better everything will be with the railroad here. Can't we stay here a few days?"

"I'd planned to," said McCaleb. "I'll need to visit the bank and the land office, and I expect the chuck wagon's mighty bare. Right, Salty?"

"Dang right," said the garrulous old cook. "After th' feed we just had, they ain't no bacon t' go with th' beans we ain't got, an' no coffee t' drink with th' dried apple pie, even if'n we had th' apples t' make 'em."

"In the morning, then," said McCaleb, "we'll see what Cheyenne has to offer."

They gathered around the chuck wagon, enjoying their coffee. They were a good outfit, McCaleb reflected. It was a time for remembering, and he let his thoughts touch on each of them and the trails they'd ridden together. First, there was Brazos Gifford and Will Elliot. They were closer to McCaleb than brothers. They would have given their lives for McCaleb, and he'd have done no less for them.

Brazos Gifford was a redheaded, quick-tempered, Spanish-speaking cowboy from south Texas. He wore a gray, flat-crowned hat, tilted low over his green eyes. The rest of his garb consisted of denim shirt, Levi's pants, and rough-out, high-heeled boots. Will Elliot had curly black hair, gray eyes, and a quick sense of humor. Will was educated. His father had been a lawyer before the war, and Will could hold his own in a frontier courtroom. Will was from Waco, and except for a wide-brim, pinch-crease black Stetson, he wore the same range clothes as Brazos. Each man carried a tied-down .44 Colt low on his right hip, and like Benton McCaleb, each carried a sixteen-shot Henry repeating rifle in his saddle boot. Brazos was twenty-nine, just a year younger than McCaleb, while Will was a year older.

If Benton McCaleb lived to be a hundred, he'd never forget the volatile situation he, Brazos, and Will had ridden into three years ago, when they'd gone to the Trinity River brakes to gather a herd of wild longhorns. While the Comanche Indians were the scourge of East Texas and would have been trouble enough, that hadn't been the worst of it. York Nance, a shameless old reprobate run out of Missouri for mule rustling, had a shack on the Trinity. He also had a son, a daughter, and a shaky alliance with the Comanches. Not only had he been selling them rotgut whiskey, he'd devised a nefarious scheme to supply them with new Spencer rifles! Worse, he had half promised his daughter to Blue Feather, a Comanche chief. McCaleb had an immediate falling out with York Nance, and the old man's dishonest ways had eventually driven Monte and Rebecca away.

Monte, the old man's twenty-one-year-old son, was a swaggering, hot-tempered kid who fancied himself a fast gun. He challenged McCaleb, went for his gun, and was wounded. Rebecca, Nance's twenty-eight-year-old daughter, had been a mother to Monte since his birth, and went after McCaleb. Thus their first meeting resulted in a kicking, scratching, clawing fight that ended with McCaleb dunking the furious Rebecca in the river. Despite instant hostility between the temperamental girl and McCaleb, a relationship developed. Rebecca Nance had green eyes, dark hair, callused hands, and not the foggiest notion of how to be a lady. Motherless since she was five, she could ride, rope, and shoot like a cowboy. And she swore like a bull whacker. But she was as charming as she was beautiful. McCaleb's outfit yielded to her plea; she and Monte had added their small herd to McCaleb's gather. From Texas to Colorado, McCaleb had endured Rebecca's stormy moods and the outfit's bullyragging, only to have the girl become infatuated with an unscrupulous Colorado cattleman, Jonathan Wickliffe. McCaleb had found himself facing hired guns on a Denver street, had been wounded, and had ended up in jail. Only when Rebecca had discovered Wickliffe's plan to kill McCaleb had he managed to reclaim her.

While young Monte Nance became faster and more deadly with a Colt, he was also improving his skills at the poker table. It was a volatile mix, which drew McCaleb's outfit into an alliance with gunfighter Clay Allison and led to a shootout with crooked gamblers in Santa Fe. There, they met the stove-up old cook, Salty Reynolds. Salty was trapped behind a lunch counter, longing to return to the range, but unable to ride. McCaleb, tired of pack mules, had bought a chuck wagon and had hired the crippled old rider. Salty had graying hair, watery blue eyes, and a sharp tongue that hid a soft heart.

The most enigmatic of McCaleb's outfit was a Comanche-hating Lipan Apache they knew only as Ganos. "Goose," half-starved and near death, was about to be burned at the stake by Comanches. Scouting the Trinity River brakes, McCaleb, Brazos, and Will had gunned down his captors, freeing the Indian. Goose had remained, riding, roping, and scouting. Goose adapted, becoming deadly quick with a Colt and a consummate gambler, but always an Indian. His constant companion was a foot-long bowie knife, razor-keen, for the scalping of his enemies.

Following the gunfight in Denver, McCaleb had spent the night in jail, pending a hearing. While there, he'd lent a sympathetic ear to three young Texas cowboys in an adjoining cell. The oldest was Pendleton Rhodes. Pen was a studious, quick-witted half-breed from Waco. He had jet-black hair, dark eyes, and a sense of humor. His companions were blue-eyed, tow-headed brothers from San Antonio, Jed and Stoney Vandiver. Stoney was youngest, just twenty-two. Jed was twenty-four, a year younger than Pen Rhodes. The trio had come up the trail from Texas, had sold their horses in Ellsworth, and had ridden the train to Denver. They had gone to a whorehouse, had been given doctored drinks, and robbed. They retaliated by wrecking the place. Benton McCaleb had been impressed with them and had paid for their release. In the summer of 1868, when McCaleb rode out of Denver, Jed, Stoney, and Pen rode with him.

Although Cheyenne was only a year old, it had an air of permanence that most railroad towns lacked. Chief engineer Grenville Dodge had chosen it as a division point for the Union Pacific, and already there was a bank, a land office, and a weekly newspaper. There were six saloons, a barbershop and bathhouse, a billiard parlor, several rooming houses, a whorehouse, a combined livery and wagon yard, and a variety of shops and stores.

"I have business at the bank and the land office," said McCaleb. "Near as we are to town, four of you can ride along. When we get back, the rest of you can go. Pen, Jed, Stoney, and Salty, I can advance you some money to buy whatever you need. You won't get a better chance than this."

"I'm about half scairt to go to town," said Stoney, "after what we got into back in Denver."

"Stay out of the whorehouses," said McCaleb. "You're likely to come out of there with more than an aching head and empty pockets."

"We're new to the outfit," said Pen. "We'll stay with the herd, and take our turn when the rest of you get back."

"Don't let us have any money until we're ready for town," said Pen, "or this Lipan cardsharp will clean us out while you're gone."

Will, Brazos, Monte, and Rebecca rode with McCaleb into town. He advanced each of them fifty dollars.

"We've tangled with the law and the courts in New Mexico and Colorado," said McCaleb. "Don't do anything that'll put us on the outs with the law here."

They grinned at him and headed for the billiard parlor.

"You never told me why Pen, Jed, and Stoney were in jail in Denver," said Rebecca. "Did that have something to do with you telling them to stay out of whorehouses?"

"Yeah," said McCaleb, "and if they ever find out I've told you, they'll be so embarrassed, they'll never look you in the face again. Come on, we have things to do."

There was a surprising number of Indians in town, apparently seeing nothing, yet seeing everything. McCaleb headed for Bullard's Mercantile, the most imposing store in Cheyenne. It covered half a block, a roofed boardwalk running the length of it.

"If you're going to the bank and to the land office," said Rebecca, "why don't we go there first? I want to spend some time in the store without us having to hurry."

"Because there's something I aim to take care of here before we go anywhere else. Later on, we'll come back here and you can take all the time you want."

Mystified, Rebecca followed him into the vast store. It was prestigious as anything she had seen in Denver or St. Louis. McCaleb headed for the center of the store and the main counter, on which sat a locked glass display case. She caught her breath at the watches and various expensive jewelry items. There were necklaces, lockets, and bracelets. And rings!

The white-haired man who hurried to wait on them might have been Bullard himself. He wore an expensive dark suit, tie, and a professional smile. Rebecca thought the smile became a bit strained as he took in their dusty clothes and runover boots.

"I want a ring for the lady," said McCaleb.

"The rings — the diamonds — are very expensive," said the man who might have been Bullard. He no longer smiled.

"I expected them to be," said McCaleb. "Let her try that one on; the big one."

"The large one is, ah, five hundred dollars...."

"I didn't ask how much it is," said McCaleb, irked. "I asked you to let her try it on. If it fits, or can be made to fit, we'll take it."

Rebecca became so choked up, she could hardly breathe as he slipped the ring on her third finger. The finger on which she had worn Jonathan Wickliffe's ring, not quite a week ago.

"... a bit loose," the expensive-dressed man was saying.

"She can take it off when she's ropin' cows," said McCaleb, unsmiling. He took a handful of double eagles from the saddlebag he carried, spilling them out on the counter. Bullard — if that's who he was — had regained his professional smile. Rebecca said nothing until they were outside the store, on the boardwalk. She trotted ahead of McCaleb, and when he reached her, she threw her arms around him, half laughing, half crying.

"Benton McCaleb," she cried, "you and your cast-iron Texas pride! Thank God he didn't know you well enough to tell you the price was five thousand dollars!"

While the building housing the bank was no more than adequate, there was an enormous vault with a time lock. Musgrove, the banker, seemed truly happy to see them. Especially when McCaleb dropped the gold-laden saddlebags on his desk.

"I appreciate your business, McCaleb," said Musgrove. "God knows, we need somebody to populate this territory besides mountain men and Indians. The railroad brings folks here and then takes them farther west, on to Oregon and California."

"That's part of our reason for coming here," said McCaleb. "The railroad. Why drive cattle a thousand miles to market when there's a couple million acres of buffalo grass within spittin' distance of the track?"

"My very existence hinges on the railroad, McCaleb. The Union Pacific is my bread and butter, so I am not at liberty to discuss some of the, ah, 'irregularities' which have arisen as a result of government land grants along the Union Pacific right-of-way. I would suggest that once you have met with Malcolm Walker at the land office, you actually homestead — secure by patent — the land you have in mind."

McCaleb and Rebecca had said little, allowing Musgrove to do most of the talking. Once they left the bank, Rebecca voiced McCaleb's very thoughts.

"The government's giving the railroads millions of acres along their rights-of-way. What Musgrove is really telling us is something's crooked going on. He's telling us to shy away from railroad lands. Why?" "The railroad, or somebody involved with it, has plans for those millions of acres," said McCaleb. "I don't aim to squat on railroad lands or use them for free range. We'll find good grazing land with water and settle there. I don't see how that poses a problem for us or the railroad. We can have access to it without settling alongside the tracks."

The huge map on Malcolm Walker's wall was the result of a survey the railroad had done in Wyoming Territory in 1862. The railroad grants — every other section along the right-of-way — had been blue-penciled. Many of the alternate sections had been blocked off in red.

"The sections blocked in red have been homesteaded," said Walker. "As you can see, where the Green River flows south from the Wind River range all the way east to the North Platte, the Sweetwater valley is tied up with homesteading."

"There's the Powder River basin, north of the Sweetwater River," said McCaleb. "Why are there no homesteaded sections there?"

"Shoshoni and Arapaho lands," said Walker. "The government ceded them the Powder River valley and lands north to the Big Horn mountains after the close of the Bozeman trail."

"The Sweetwater range has been boxed in," said McCaleb. "A hundred and fifty miles from west to east, and seventy-five miles north to south, homesteaded strategically along the Sweetwater to secure all water rights, and covered to the south by the Union Pacific tracks and government grants to the railroad. If I had to guess, I'd say that some jaybird has hired himself enough 'homesteaders' to tie up water rights along the Sweetwater to the north. Still guessin', I won't be surprised to find this same hombre already has, or can get, control of the government grants along the Union Pacific right-of-way to the south."

"I can't confirm or deny what you've just said," protested Walker. "I can assure you that the homesteaded sections along the Sweetwater are in the names of individuals. Different people."

"With every one capable of proving up on his patent," said McCaleb, "and then selling out to someone else."

"Mr. McCaleb," said Walker coldly, "it's not my place to discuss with you the possibility — or even the probability — of wrongdoing under the Homestead Act. I'm here to tell you what's available for homesteading and to assist you in filing if you choose to do so."

"We want to file on ten quarter-sections, then," said McCaleb. "On Box Elder Creek, a hundred miles due north of Cheyenne and fifty miles north of the Union Pacific tracks."

"I see," said Walker with a half smile. "Each of your riders will claim a quarter section, and you — the outfit — will control it all. Legal, of course, but I had the impression you didn't approve of such tactics."

"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," said McCaleb.

"Maybe we should just move on," said Rebecca when they'd left the land office. "We could go to Montana. Somebody with the railroad almost has to be involved in all this, and we can't fight them."

"I don't aim to," said McCaleb. "We're not makin' a bid for their land, and we've got as much right to homestead as they have. What's botherin' you is that people as greedy as that, owning the Sweetwater valley, still won't be satisfied."

"I know they won't," she said. "If they were that easy to satisfy, they wouldn't have taken so much already."

"It purely ain't my nature to run from people like that," said McCaleb. "Let one buffalo you, and you'll end up always on the run. I won't run."

"How well I know that," sighed Rebecca. "Texans are never truly happy until they're down to their last two or three shells, bleeding from their wounds, and surrounded by hostile Indians or outlaws. Can we go to the store?"

"You can," said McCaleb. "I aim to find out who this jaybird is that's makin' such big tracks along the Sweetwater. Like you said," he grinned, "if he gets troublesome, I'll have to know who I'm gunnin' for."

Returning to Bullard's Mercantile, Rebecca found Brazos and Monte testing the lever action on some new Winchester rifles.

"Seventeen-shot," said Monte. "They're replacing the Henry. Seems like we've made enough money that we could afford some of these. But they're almost fifty dollars apiece."

Rebecca giggled. "We can't afford them. McCaleb spent all our money."

Monte whooped at the sight of the ring and lifted her off the floor. Even the usually bashful Brazos gave her a squeeze.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

For anyone who has ever read a Louis L'Amour book or any western , these series books of the Trail Drive series are the best.They have so much of the western flare that you can't help but get caught up in the characters and their trials and lives. Love it and would recommend to anyone, any age.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Love this book and all of the Trail Drive series.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

First book I've read by him and will definitely read more. Story was fast paced,entertaining and an all around great read

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DuaneC

More than 1 year ago

Compton masterfully weaves a number of chapters together into a rugged tapestry of Texans building a cattle empire in Wyoming.

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Novembers_Saturday

More than 1 year ago

The Bent McCaleb outfit continues on in this volume of the trail series. Not as good as The Goodnight Trail but still good historical cowboy drama. I really liked learning about the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming too. Overall I would recommend this especially if you intend to carry on with the series.

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